Thursday, September 15, 2016

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), together
with the neighbouring British Museum, is a centre of Orientalism in its proper
sense, viz. the study of “Oriental” civilizations. Exactly one hundred years
ago, it came about as the headquarters of what Edward Said notoriously called
“Orientalism”, meaning the colonial Empire’s project of pigeon-holing every
Oriental culture in order better to dominate it.

At that same time, on the enemy side in the ongoing First
World War, the German scholar Max Weber published one of the most influential
studies of the Orient, focusing on the question of the economic views and
implications of the world religions, and especially the part about Hinduism and
Buddhism. It sought to understand why not they but Protestantism had presided
over the techno-scientific and economic breakthrough to industrial capitalism
and modernity.

Some fifty people gathered in the SOAS’s Brunei Gallery
Lecture Theatre for the centenary of both SOAS and Max Weber’s work. As for
SOAS’s anniversary, chairman Peter Flügel quoted viceroy Lord Curzon calling
SOAS at its time of conception the “necessary furniture of empire”, for
“Oriental studies are an imperial obligation”. This is a key citation in Edward
Said’s “Orientalism” thesis, viz. that Orientalist scholarship was essentially a
strategic investment by the colonial establishment.

As for Weber, his view is fairly representative of general
Western opinion (partly by having created it) regarding the Hindu-Buddhist
counterpart to the role of the Protestant work ethic in the genesis of
capitalism. He had concluded that the Orientals certainly succeeded in
launching a mercantile capitalism but, partly because of their otherworldly
religion, failed in creating modern industrial capitalism. However, he also had
testified in 1916 how, in the middle of WW1, he had found his study of the
Hindu-Buddhist worldviews invigorating. We were going to recreate some of that
spirit.

Romila Thapar

The keynote lecture was given by the octogenarian historian
Prof. Romila Thapar. She looked quite good for her age, elegant and dignified
in her sari. She thus exemplified Sita Ram Goel’s observation that secularists
often display a sincere affection for traditional Hindu culture, all the more
striking when supposed Hindutva militants go all out for Westernization, from
the British-style RSS uniform and brass bands to the present-day
BJP-facilitated guzzling down of American economic mores and cultural
mannerisms. The secularists of the older generation are culturally still very
Indian, and have a traditional pride presenting an unassuming alternative
identity to the present idealization of Western examples. (I am reminded of her
colleague Prof. Irfan Habib’s proud old-Marxist rejection of US patronage,
contrasting to the complete conceptual as well as outwardly Americanization of
the younger generation of secularists and Ambedkarites.)

It transpired that she had a vivid interest in Weber’s work
regarding India, whom she read some forty years ago. As no Indian scholar of the
younger generation showed a similar interest, she had graciously accepted the
invitation from SOAS. The institution was familiar ground to her. She earned
her PhD degree at SOAS with a dissertation on Ashoka’s inscriptions, published
as an authoritative book in 1961. (Also present here was retired Oxford
Buddhologist Prof. Richard Gombrich, who strongly disagrees with her on those
inscriptions, which he doesn’t consider “secular” at all, but instead
outspokenly promoting the specific Buddhist worldview.) She immediately
established a good rapport with the audience, speaking slowly with a clear and
authoritative diction, as an experienced professor should.

She started with noticing the obvious: that Max Weber’s
research on Indian history and society relied heavily on colonial writings
available then, and necessarily differed from the present-day theories. Being a
prisoner of the colonial view, he did not thematize the implications of colonialism itself (unlike Karl Marx, who
wrote about colonialism in Ireland and India). Weber reproduced and refined the
colonial theory of “Oriental despotism”, which militated against the individual
freedom and social mobility needed for the genesis of modern capitalism.

Religions and their
work ethic

Weber remains most famous for his thesis that the Protestant
work ethic in the UK, the US and Germany was responsible for the rise of
industrial capitalism. Weber argued that capitalism could not have originated
in the India because of its lack of fraternization between different groups
(esp. during apprenticeship, where Indian pupils were confined to their caste
environment)), its lack of social mobility, its cultural depreciation of
commerce and its otherworldly religious orientation. He did not give sufficient
consideration to the Jains, whose trading activity, money-lending and
renunciation of enjoying their profits come closest to the Protestant work
ethic, though in passing he admits they had potential. In precolonial times,
China and India were the main economies in Eurasia and practised mercantile
capitalism. But they missed the shift to industrial capitalism, which took
place in Europe.

But then, Weber neglected the specific 18th-19th century
history of India and the role of both native and colonial capitalism therein.
More generally, he treated Hindu culture as a monolithic whole, insufficiently
considering the differences between classes and regions, and not taking the
changes between the different periods into account. In a borrowed distortion
typical for the Orientalists of the colonial period, he based his understanding
of Hinduism only on texts, esp. the Vedic corpus to whom different groups
acrossregions and centuries paid due
lip-service all while exhibiting variations and going through changes. Thus,
that is why the scripture-based fourfold Varna (“caste”) system figured far more
prominently in the Western image of Hindu society than the real-life
thousandfold Jati (“caste”) system.

The corrective that Hindu society was too readily seen as
changeless may have been the most important message in her lecture, seemingly
trivial but full of consequences for both Hindus and practising Orientalists.
In this case, the colonial-age Orientalists, with Weber in their wake, may have
borrowed their extremely static view of Hindu culture from the Hindus themselves.
Allow me to improvise an example.

The “Hindu caste
system”

When the Ambedkarites and their Western cheerleaders anchor
the caste system, complete with untouchability, in the Rg-Veda’s Purusha Sukta,
they are wrong; yet, they are only following a traditionalist Hindu view that
prevailed during the past few centuries. The box-type caste Apartheid with
caste endogamy of the Puranic and early modern era was nowhere to be seen in
the Rg-Veda: the earlier family books don’t report any trace of it, and the
Purusha Sukta in the late Book 10 only reports the existence of four distinct
functions in a complex society. After that, the caste system gradually hardened
with a stage of hereditary caste only in the paternal line (as with the Brahmin
Vyasa, son of the Brahmin Parashara and the fisher-girl Matsyagandha; and as
with the sons of Dasis who were recruited into the Brahmin caste, mentioned
here by Prof. Thapar), and finally endogamy. Equating Hinduism with the classical
caste system, as is the wont of the Christian missionaries, the Ambedkarites
and many an Orientalist, makes the mistake of disregarding change in Hindu
history, but this mistake is based on Hindus having made the same mistake. For
some two thousand years, any trespass against or doubt regarding the fully
grown caste system was condemned with an invocation of the Rg-Veda’s authority,
as if the Purusha Sukta had described the kind of caste system with which later
Hindus were familiar.

(It deserves mention here that Prof. Thapar has personally
contributed to our awareness of change within Hindu social structure. She has
edited the bookIndia. Historical Beginnings and the Concepts of the
Aryan, 2006, in which Marxist
historian Shereen Ratnagar asserts,
p.166: “if, as in the case of the early Vedic society, land was neither
privately owned nor inherited by successive generations, then land rights would
have been irrelevant to the formation of kin groups, and there would be nothing
preventing younger generations from leaving the parental fold. In such societies
the constituent patrilineages or tribal sections were not strongly corporate.
So together with geographic expansion there would be social flexibility.” It
has become fashionable to moralize about the caste system, with evil Brahmins
inventing caste and then imposing it on others; but hard-headed Marxists don’t
fall for this conspiracy theory and see the need for socio-economic conditions
to explain the reigning system of hierarchy or equality. The pastoral
early-Vedic society did have the conditions for a more equal relation between
individuals than the more complex later Hindu society.)

Other factual inaccuracies in Weber’s work include the total
disregard for the presence of Islam in India, like for that of Buddhism in
China, because their foreignness jeopardizes Weber’s explanation of India’s
economic performance as stemming from the Indian religions. The different religions
were treated as self-contained, not porous. The Indian state was described as
agricultural, while recent studies corrected this: there was much commerce,
including maritime, and this had only increased with urbanization after the
year 1000. Weber also exaggerated the power of karma beliefs to reconcile
people to social misfortune. The peasantry often responded to crises by migration,
and sometimes even by that supposedly un-Indian behaviour: rebellion. They
didn’t wait for the next birth to better their circumstances.

Trade was not despised, and even Brahmins and ascetics
involved themselves in it, e.g. in the horse trade. Labour division between
castes was more flexible than used to be thought. In the century before Weber,
the static view of caste was conspicuously challenged by the anti-Brahmin
movements and by the upper-caste reform movements. Even a non-specialist could
have been more aware of these developments.

Conclusion

So, let us sum up. Max Weber’s world exists no more, and
even the terms of the debate have been altered. Are the categories of religion
used by Weber (and likewise by Marx) still valid? They strike us now as
context-free and innocent of the changes that took place. Today, this
non-change view is regarded as ahistorical. Weber would have been better if he
had compared the same period in East and West, rather than comparing apples
with pears: timeless societies in the distance with the familiar recent stage
of Western society.

We remain stuck with the large question: what prevented Asia
from taking the lead in knowledge? Why was the lead grabbed by Europe, after
having lagged behind for so long? More was required for this than the Protestant
work ethic. And another question, rather trivial but appropriate on this
occasion: how would Max Weber have seen the religion of India a hundred years
later?

Afterthought

So much for the Weber lecture. People who know something of
the Ayodhya controversy may be surprised to learn that afterwards, I had a few
friendly interactions with Prof. Thapar. Remembering the flak I drew in India when
I took my erstwhile Aryan Origins adversary Michael Witzel’s side in the
controversy that followed the publication of his book on Global Mythology, I
will take the trouble to explain.

Firstly, it is all rather long ago, about a quarter century.
Back then, she took a leadership role in the secularist plea that there was no
basis for historans to accept the belief that a Hindu temple had stood at the
site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. In the dominant political and academic
circles, that position suddenly became a consensus, and I stood out by challenging
it. But that debate has been settled, definitively with the Court-ordered
excavations in 2003, which laid bare plenty of remainders of the temple. When
the war is over, soldiers go home, and let the war psychology which had
animated them on the battlefield, subside.

I will not mention the names of some Hindu and some
anti-Hindu scholars who are still repeating quite exactly what they said
decades ago, especially in the Aryan Origins debate. They foam at the mouth
when they argue their point, and keep on doing so. But for better or for worse,
I am not like that. So, the second reason is that I really don’t believe in
personalizing debates on specific issues. Admittedly, I was not quite immune to
that tendency when I was younger. But gradually, you not only know in theory,
but also realize in practice, that human relations should not, or as little as
possible, be affected by controversies. Even in controversies that I find
myself in today, I endeavour to stay on friendly terms with my adversaries.

Number three is the reason of principle, that I want
henceforth to guide all my dealings with adversaries. As Socrates said, the
root of everything deemed evil is ignorance. People who objectively do evil,
subjectively believe they are doing the right thing, because somewhere they
have picked up a mistaken idea of what constitutes right, or of what exactly it
is that they are doing. There is no need to intensify the impression that they
are evil, it is more helpful to make them see reason, and automatically they
will correct their position; for it is not in eagerness to do the right thing
that they are lacking.It also helps to
remain aware that you yourself with all your good intentions seem likewise to
be on the wrong side from your adversaries’ viewpoint. That is no reason to
assume all positions are equal, or to drop your own convictions, but it will
help you to better understand how anyone could have taken the opposite position
to your own.

Meanwhile, on the lawn outside the SOAS gate, there is a
statue of the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar. It carries a translated quotation of
his, which I would like to reproduce as my parting shot:

“Meet with joy, with pleasant thoughts part,/ Such is the
learned scholar’s art.”

11 comments:

Industrial capitalism is dependent on the workers needing money. Industrial capitalism arose at the same time as the rise of modern money system in the west. Also the population growth in Europe meant that the traditional skills people had which earned them a living were becoming less and less a reliable source of income because of competition. Pushing people to look for work in factories in order to make money. I don't think religion had anything to do with it, or a work ethic, it was the desperation of the workers for money which was the new honey in the new economic system. The combination of the new inventions which started the industrial revolution, combined with the new money system, along with the population growth in small areas causing increase of competition for goods and services, caused people to flock to the factories to make dependable wages.

In Asia the conditions were quite different for most people, the population for the most part at that time were self-sustaining off the land. Factory work has no intrinsic appeal aside from money. Only those desperate for money would work in a factory, it would be a very last resort, which in Europe could be found many of in small areas. Of course Asia eventually succumbed to industrial capitalism, but it had to start somewhere and it started where the conditions of the common worker were so bad that they felt they had to work in factories in order to survive. Religion had nothing to do with it, it was the conditions of Europe for the worker along with new inventions and the new money system. The conditions in Asia where everything was much more complex and much more based on traditional economies and self-sustenance with extended families and clans taking care of people in need, made it slower for industry to take root because the people were less inclined to do that hellish factory work for money.

Just because a public person wears a sari doesn't mean they have a sincere affection for traditional Hindu culture. They may have been advised to do so by paid experts on promotion, advertising and opinion making, creating an illusion attractive to the average viewer, who becomes more open to accepting their ideas, opinions or products. A kind of maya within the maya.

Just because something was not mentioned in the Vedas doesn't mean it wasn't there in practical life. It simply means that the Vedas were not (particularly) interested in that kind of contents or did not consider it important enough to deal with more extensively. That may be the lesson with the caste system: its not that important in defining the Hindu society, neither ages ago, nor now. Though there may have been periods when the system was pushed towards extremes (aka exceptions).

A side note: what's with all that marxism? Weren't all attempts at applying it in practice quite unsuccessful or negative, to use a euphemism (referring to marxism-based ideologies like communism). On the other hand, every ideology has much truth to it, especially when properly interpreted.

Hindu society as monolithic and changeless? The society may change, but its (Vedic) basics remain the same. Our experiences may change, but the Absolute Truth remains the same. The interpretation of the caste system may change, but its purpose remains the same.

Why is Webber promoted? Could it be because his views are yet another way of denigrating religions, blaming them as obstacles to the supposedly advanced western system of efficient accumulation of wealth (ie. greed) or knowledge (of materialistic, ie. lesser things). The view is likely supported by those that are interested in weakening traditional values in favor of current materialistic dogmas.

What prevented Asia from taking the lead in knowledge? One answer is 'destiny' or 'karma'. Another answer may be that Asia already had much knowledge on the nature of reality and thus was not particularly impressed by what comes out from observing the (lesser) materialistic reality.

Why was the lead grabbed by Europe, after having lagged behind for so long?Why does a starving man tend to eat excessively when he finally gets some food, even though it is wiser to take it slowly?

Protestant work ethic? Didn't the dictators in this world also have an impressive work ethic? Yet the results of their work have had a very negative effect. In other words, a work ethic needs to be accompanied by intelligence in order to choose the appropriate way of doing things.

“Meet with joy, with pleasant thoughts part,/ Such is the learned scholar’s art.”I'd interpret that one as: remaining optimistic regardless of the results of one's pursuits.

I think you should feel some pride as a person with Dutch heritage. The Dutch were squarely responsible for many inventions for which appropriate credit is not given. In the broader scheme of things, credit is instead given to British people - Newton, Watt, Darwin etc.

The Dutch had a brilliant technical know-how of operating water mills and wind mills. This mechanization was important for later inventions e.g, clockwork. Another important invention was that of lens making, noticed accidentally by the spectacle maker Hans Lippershay. This invention was coopted by Galileo to make his telescope. Finally, the Dutch anatomist Versalius should be credited for revolutionizing the study of anatomy and medicine. Unlike mathematics and physics, where Europe was severely lagging behind Asia (India/China/Arabs), the advantage in anatomy was clear. Before Versalius, starting from even 1200s, open anatomical dissections of corpses were performed in Europe. This knowledge was combined with artistic knowledge, by people such as Da Vinci, who created the first modern scientific discipline of careful mapping of facts: anatomy. This inspiration from anatomy later percolated into machine drawings and other mechanization. The credit should be squarely given to these practical thinkers than metaphysical theologians like Newton (who copied off astronomical calculations from India and added his metaphysics to write his Principia Mathematica). The church was instrumental right from the beginning in assigning credit to people who are more favorable to the dogma.

My larger writeup on the importance of anatomy for European renaissance: http://the-redpill.blogspot.de/2016/01/anatomy-of-open-source-education.html

On the real story of calculus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaodCGDjqzs

Desi calendar system makes somewhat more sense than judeo-xtian/mohamedan calendrical systems. Desi time-keeping is in harmony with Nature. Spring is the natural time for celebrating New Year. Body is microcosm of Multiverse/Brahmand/'universe'. I think Vadakayil has stated Mount Kailash is pineal gland of Dharti Mata/Earth.

The Dharmic day commences at Sunrise. One error in Nanakshahi calendar is day starts at midnight: this is a mistake - day is from sunrise to sunrise though ablutions and morning spiritual routine start around three hours before sunrise. Of course first priority is kirat/work. Work makes life possible. Persons who adhere to early rising usually have naps during day. It is duty of gov't to ensure ethical work is available to citizens, especially careers and jobs for men as they are head of family. Feminism is unnatural.

Frankly, I've never understood these civilizational pissing contests. Empirically, world history seems to show different geographical regions going through periods of ascent and decline. Northwestern Europe (the area associated with founding "modernity") was a backwater during the beginnings of civilization, philosophy, and science. The founders of "Western" civilization, the ancient Greeks, weren't even interested in that part of the world.

We can ask questions that Weber ignored: Why did the the Greeks (circa 1500 onwards) play no role in the "modern" transition even though their ancestors set the foundation for it? The point of the question is merely to show that these analyses never look at the broad movements of history.

Kindly note: the four ages (Satjug/Dwapar/Treta/Kaljug) are reflected in each day with sunrise signalling start of Satjug and throughout twelve months springtime is beginning of the year's Satjug.

It is thought that in this most recent Kalpa Treta and Dwapar were mixed up and did not occur in their natural order.

With plight of girls and cows in most horrific conditions since Fueher A. Hitler lost WW2 it seems like it is deepest darkest Kaljug even though some claim Kaljug ended in 1699 with Guru Sahib's revealing of Khalsa. With such desperation world sought to destroy two nations that would have been completely vegetarian: Deutchland and Sovereign Sikh State. (Khalistan declared in April of 1986 by Sikh Quom)

It is impossible to put a noose around an ideal. Satguru Sahib's Ideals of truthful and worthwhile life will never die.

'Ray Lightning's video of Dr C.K.Raju provides the answer why the indians and chinese lost out to europeans.Just look at aryabhattaa's complicated description for the ratio of circumference to diameter of the circle !! Sufficient to chase away anyone who has little interest in maths. I wonder how he got those figures and method to find out value of Pi :" 100 + 4 , multiplied by 8 , and added to 62,000 this is near measure of circumference of circle whose dia is 20,000 "If this ratio is what he wanted to find out , then he should have a 'built' a circle and its diameter with bricks , and he could have easily found out that with 7 bricka as dia, it requires 22 bricks to built the circumference and hence the ratio is 22:7. This is very similar to the way pythagaros theorem is mentioned in the vedhas: "The area formed by two sides of a right angled triangle is same as the area formed by its hypotenuse. ". They need just 50 bricks to derive this info. !!

There is a saying in tamil : if you want to touch your nose with your finger, just touch it straight, don't wrap your arm around your head to touch it. !! Well, this is where aryabhattaa and indians flopped. I won't be surprised to hear that arybhattaa's disciples had abandoned maths after his death , LOL !!!!

About Me

Koenraad Elst (°Leuven 1959) distinguished himself early on as eager to learn and to dissent. After a few hippie years he studied at the KU Leuven, obtaining MA degrees in Sinology, Indology and Philosophy. After a research stay at Benares Hindu University he did original fieldwork for a doctorate on Hindu nationalism, which he obtained magna cum laude in 1998.
As an independent researcher he earned laurels and ostracism with his findings on hot items like Islam, multiculturalism and the secular state, the roots of Indo-European, the Ayodhya temple/mosque dispute and Mahatma Gandhi's legacy. He also published on the interface of religion and politics, correlative cosmologies, the dark side of Buddhism, the reinvention of Hinduism, technical points of Indian and Chinese philosophies, various language policy issues, Maoism, the renewed relevance of Confucius in conservatism, the increasing Asian stamp on integrating world civilization, direct democracy, the defence of threatened freedoms, and the Belgian question. Regarding religion, he combines human sympathy with substantive skepticism.